November 13, 2008

“Everyone got the joke, and it was quite an experience to feel that we are being laughed at everywhere,” says Sylvía Ingibergsdóttir psychiatric nurse that went to a European convention of psychiatric nurses with an Icelandic colleague in Malta these days.

The convention was sought by 350 psychiatric nurses from 35 countries and the manager of psychiatric area of the international health care institution of Europe, dr. Matt Muijem, spoke to the convocation. “He spoke of the health in some nations and in his speech he mocked the Icelanders by saying that the Icelanders were the happiest nation in the world until recently. Now they are the most unhappy,” says Sylvía “Then he laughed and the worst was the the whole convocation laughed with him.”

She says this is not the only incident of this sort in the convention. “We met a Norwegian nurse and when we told her that we are from Iceland she laughed and said; Ah yes the poor people!”

From what Sylvía says the lack of understanding in the situation was total. “People from the other Nordic nations seemed to look at the way the Icelandic investors behaved and knew of some of the reactions of the Icelandic government but did not realize the tragedy that is going on here and touches every family in Iceland in one way or another. The experience was really that a whole nation has lost its reputation because of the economic issues.”